Samsung Opens its First Store in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES — Samsung Electronics Co. announced that it opened its first store in Cuba on Monday, which is a remarkable step for the international technological company as it aims to infiltrate the Caribbean market on a full-scale, reported Yonhap from Seoul.
The South Korean technological giant said that it opened up a store in cooperation with the Cuban retail chain, Caribbean TRD Retail Store Chain (TRD), which belongs to the Cuban Armed Forces.
The store will display luxury Samsung Electronics products, including smartphones, TVs and fridges.
The TRD retail chain owns over 50% of the Cuban electronics market.
In 2012, Samsung took part, for the first time, in an Electronics convention organized in Cuba and has been making an effort to penetrate this country’s market further. The company has said that it hopes the store will help to improve the Samsung brand’s reputation within the region.
Samsung has made very good marketing decisions over the years. They have never asked for my help or critique and I understand why.
There is money out there in Cuba that we cannot envision and it is being spent. Our little municipality of Cueto in Holguin has around 35,000 citizens with an average income of $15 per month according to the last census. There is not a casa particular in the whole municipality. Yet our TRD regularly stocks and sells $900 refrigerators, $400 washing machines, $500 freezers, $600 split air conditioners, even $350 electric hot water heaters. I cannot identify this market. It appears to just be a big garlic farmer here, a bolita banker there, a camion owner here, someone who gets large remittances there. And it that is the situation in our municipality in rural Holguin, I can only imagine what it is in Havana.
Many Cubans have Samsung phones. Are those that do all extraordinary ?
Hope springs eternal! I know of an Adidas shop in a Cuban city and young men will scrimp and save just to be able to have a garment or shoes with the three stripes. No doubt GAESA takes a cut!
They can’t.
How on Earth can the ordinary workman/woman ever hope to save enough money to purchase from here?